Beijing has raised the stakes in a crackling dispute with Washington over
cyber-espionage, accusing American-based hackers of making 100,000 attacks a
month on Chinese military websites.

The unusually specific claims, made yesterday by China’s Defence Ministry, are
a response to an American report last week that identified a unit of the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as a hub of cyber-attacks on the US
Government, its military and its corporations.

A ministry spokesman said that every month last year China received around
144,000 attacks on the defence ministry’s website and on the website of the
PLA’s mouthpiece newspaper. Two thirds of